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The West End production of Stephen Ward will complete its run at the Aldwych Theatre on 29 March 2014. Stephen Ward received its world premiere in December last year with a cast led by Alexander Hanson in the title role, Charlotte Spencer as Christine Keeler and Charlotte Blackledge as Mandy Rice Davies. With music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Ward has book and lyrics by playwright Christopher Hampton and lyricist Don Black. The production is directed by Richard Eyre with set and costume designs by Rob Howell, lighting design by Peter Mumford, sound design by Paul Groothuis, projection design by Jon Driscoll, and choreography by Stephen Mear.

Donmar; Aldwych, London; Crucible, Sheffield

Tom Hiddleston's Coriolanus is blazing but bleak, and there's as little love in a 60s sex scandal as there was in Dickens's London

The first time I saw Tom Hiddleston act was at the Donmar six years ago. He was 26, a doleful Cassio to Chiwetel Ejiofor's Othello, and he made a small part look essential. Now he takes centre stage as a blazing Coriolanus. Blazing but bleak. He is the ideal combination of emotional reserve and physical bravura.

Reserve has always been one of the problems of this difficult play. Where do spectators put their trust? The play's martial hero treats the audience as he does the populace – don't say plebs – he despises. He will not show his wounds to the public in order to get their vote. He will not let spectators into his thoughts with a soliloquy.

A couple of years...

The cast for the World Premiere of Stephen Ward, directed by Richard Eyre, will comprise Alexander Hanson as Stephen Ward, Charlotte Spencer as Christine Keeler, Charlotte Blackledge as Mandy Rice Davies, Anthony Calfas Lord Astor, Daniel Flynn as John Profumo, Joanna Riding as Valerie Hobson, Ian Conningham as Ivanov, Chris Howell as Murray, Ricardo Coke Thomas as Lucky Gordon and Wayne Robinson as Johnny Edgecomp. Other cast members are Martin Callaghan, Kate Coyston, Jason Denton, Julian Forsyth, Amy Griffiths, Paul Kemble, Emma Kate Nelson, Carl Sanderson, Emily Squibb, John Stacey, Helen Ternent and Tim Walton.

Nigel Harman has been cast as a character based on Simon Cowell in the upcoming X Factor musical.

The former EastEnders star will channel the music mogul in the comedy theatre project from Harry Hill.

I Can't Sing! will be directed by Olivier Award-winner Sean Foley, and will premiere at the London Palladium on March 26, 2014 after previews.

Harman will play a character based on X Factor boss Cowell, while The Color Purple actress Cynthia Erivo and Holby City's Alan Morrissey will also appear.

The actor has recently appeared on the West End in shows including A Chorus of Disapproval and Shrek the Musical.

Simon Cowell will appear at the musical's press launch on Monday (September 2).

Actor Alexander Hanson was previously linked to the role of Simon Cowell in the production.

Watch X Factor stars discuss their dream casting choices for the musical with Digital Spy below:...

Details have emerged about the upcoming X Factor comedy musical.

Simon Cowell will be portrayed by stage actor Alexander Hanson, according to The Sun.

Hanson has starred in many West End and Broadway plays, and is married to Downton Abbey actress Samantha Bond.

Cowell was said to be "howling with laughter" when he watched Hanson read through his lines for the play in London last week.

A source said: "He's not exactly a Hollywood A-lister but he does a bloody good Simon Cowell. Simon had to admit he was the right man for the job."

Hanson's portrayal of Cowell will reportedly include a song titled 'Falling in Love with Myself'.

Harry Hill has been working on the musical project with songwriter Steve Brown, who previously worked together on TV Burp.

Insiders have claimed that the musical will focus on a hopeful named Shenise and her attempts to win The X Factor.

Alexander Hanson is to play Simon Cowell in 'The X Factor' musical. The 51-year-old actor - whose previous work includes roles in 'The Bill', 'Casualty' and 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' - impressed everyone in auditions in London last week and had the music mogul ''howling with laughter'' as he looked on during the read through. A source told The Sun newspaper: ''He's not exactly a Hollywood A-lister but he does a bloody good Simon Cowell. Simon had to admit he was the right man for the job.'' In the production, the stage Simon even sings a huge number called 'Falling In Love With Myself'...

Alexander Hanson is to play Simon Cowell in 'The X Factor' musical. The 51-year-old actor - whose previous work includes roles in 'The Bill', 'Casualty' and 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' - impressed everyone in auditions in London last week and had the music mogul ''howling with laughter'' as he looked on during the read through. A source told The Sun newspaper: ''He's not exactly a Hollywood A-lister but he does a bloody good Simon Cowell. Simon had to admit he was the right man for the job.'' In the production, the stage Simon even sings a huge number called 'Falling In Love With Myself'...

"The X Factor Musical," a stage show co-produced by Simon Cowell with a Simon Cowell character, had an invite only workshop in London in late January. And it was a smash, according to Cowell.

The New York Post's Michael Riedel had spies at the event and revealed details in a new column. The show follows a young black woman who auditions for "The X Factor" and is living in a trailer park with her grandfather, who's in an iron lung. The lead character has quite the voice and -- Spoiler Alert -- ultimately wins the competition.

Alexander Hanson, who was recently on the Broadway stage opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones in "A Little Night Music," played Cowell in the workshop. According to Riedel, Hanson sang a song, "Falling in Love With Myself," poking fun at Cowell's narcissism. The New York Post reports that Cowell howled with laughter.

In January 2013, prior to seeing the workshop,...

Michael Riedel reports that Simon Cowell is hard at work on The X Factor Musical, which just had an invitation only workshop in London last week, starring Alexander Hanson as the infamous reality show judge. The show, with a 16 million dollar budget is being co-produced by Cowell and Stage Entertainment, and features an original score by Steve Brown and a script by Harry Hill.

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is at work on a musical based on the events surrounding the 1963 Profumo Affair. Today, the Daily Mail has confirmed that Lloyd Webber will be leading a sing-through of the musical's score with Alexander Hanson as Stephen Ward and Hal Fowler as Profumo. Joining them will be Iris Roberts as Christine Keeler, and Carly Bawden as Mandy Rice Davies.

The Outnumbered and James Bond actor on the joys and stresses of working alongside her husband in a new Oscar Wilde production

I can't help noticing on my way into the Vaudeville theatre that Samantha Bond's name is at the top of the bill. Exactly two spaces above her husband's, Alexander Hanson. Hmm, I wonder, how does that go down at home?

"I think you'll find the billing is alphabetical," she says, quick as a flash. Really? "Oh yes. Bond comes before Hanson, I'm afraid."

That particular issue has evidently been neatly sidestepped, then, but appearing alongside your spouse of two decades in an Oscar Wilde play is not without its challenges. Particularly when the Oscar Wilde play in question is called An Ideal Husband. And when it is your actual husband who is playing the ideal husband in question.

So, is he? "Is he ideal? In real life?...

Despite many rumors of new stars and replacement casts, the first Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Tony Award-winning masterpiece A Little Night Music, starring Academy Award-winner and Tony-nominee Catherine Zeta-Jones, five-time Tony Award-winner Angela Lansbury and Olivier Award-nominee Alexander Hanson, will play its final performance on Sunday, June 20th at 3:00 Pm after 20 previews and 217 regular performances. Directed by Tony Award-winner Trevor Nunn, the production began previews on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 and opened on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street).

Tom Aldredge, Len Cariou, Nathan Lane, Alexander Hanson and Michele Pawk have joined other stars who have shone in Stephen Sondheim musicals, including Michael Cerveris, Barbara Cook, Raúl Esparza, Sutton Foster, Victor Garber, Joanna Gleason, Patti LuPone, Donna Murphy and Bernadette Peters in a gala celebration of Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Stephen Sondheim on the occasion of his 80th birthday on Monday, April 26. The gala, directed by Tony Award winner John Doyle, will highlight numbers from shows for which Mr. Sondheim has written both music and lyrics, and will feature a full orchestra conducted by Encores! Music Director Rob Berman. The benefit will help fund New York City Center's artistic and education programs. In addition, a portion of the evening's proceeds will go to Young Playwrights Inc, a charity of great importance to Mr. Sondheim.

Playing the daughter to Angela Lansbury's ancient mother, the Hollywood star is unconvincing as a rejected lover

Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, directed by Trevor Nunn and the biggest opening in New York this season, is a tough gig for a Broadway debut, even for a movie star who won an Oscar for Chicago. With its complex score and no conventional showstoppers, it requires the skills of a seasoned stage actor. And while Catherine Zeta-Jones can act and sing, she can't do both at once in this production – at least not in one take.

The show is a musical interpretation of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, a tangle of love affairs and mistaken intentions set in Sweden at the turn of the last century. It is also a study of self-consciousness, which sadly for its star is not the same thing as being self-conscious.

Performances began on Tuesday, November 24th, for the first Broadway revival of A Little Night Music starring Academy Award-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones, five-time Tony Award®-winner Angela Lansbury and Olivier Award-nominee Alexander Hanson. Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Tony Award-winning masterpiece A Little Night Music, directed by Tony Award®-winner Trevor Nunn, opens on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

Performances began on Tuesday, November 24th, for the first Broadway revival of A Little Night Music starring Academy Award-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones, five-time Tony Award®-winner Angela Lansbury and Olivier Award-nominee Alexander Hanson. Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Tony Award-winning masterpiece A Little Night Music, directed by Tony Award®-winner Trevor Nunn, opens on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

The revival of a Sondheim musical with a very British flavour lures recession-hit New York audiences back to the theatre

She made her stage debut as the lead in Annie at the Swansea Grand Theatre at 12. Now, 28 years later, the Hollywood star Catherine Zeta-Jones is again treading the boards, although in slightly more grandiose surroundings.

Zeta-Jones, 40, will make her first appearance on Broadway next month when the curtain goes up on Sir Trevor Nunn's eagerly awaited revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music. Preview performances at the Walter Kerr theatre began last week in advance of the opening night on 13 December and tickets, which are being sold on eBay for as much as $300, are like gold dust.

In the production Zeta-Jones, who plays the part of a flamboyant actress called Desiree Armfeldt, sings one of Sondheim's most famous songs, "Send in the Clowns". Although there have...

Academy Award-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones, five-time Tony Award®-winner Angela Lansbury and Olivier Award-nominee Alexander Hanson will star in the first Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Tony Award-winning masterpiece A Little Night Music, directed by Tony Award®-winner Trevor Nunn. The production begins previews on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 and opens on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street).

Highly anticipated by many of James Bond's fans, "Quantum of Solace" has delivered one memorable world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. On Wednesday, October 29, this first screening event for the 22nd Bond movie has become a royal gala benefiting Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion with the attendance of the British princes, William and Harry.

In company of the princes, Bond star Daniel Craig arrived at the premiere fully dressed in black tuxedo. Still sporting a sling for his injured shoulder, Craig was accompanied by his partner U.S. producer Satsuki Mitchell. Joining him for the event were his co-stars, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Giancarlo Giannini, Judi Dench and Mathieu Amalric, as well as Bond filmmakers, director Marc Forster and producer Barbara Broccoli.

Also at the special event were Samantha Bond, Colin Salmon,Bob Geldof, Elle Macpherson, Katherine Jenkins, Robbie Coltrane, Rick Yune, Karen Elson,...

The London revival of musical The Sound Of Music has lost its leading man after producers reportedly felt their Captain Von Trapp wasn't to their liking. Actor Simon Shepherd has been dismissed from the production, according to UK newspaper the Daily Mail, after producers claimed his Von Trapp wasn't working. He had appeared in just two preview performances of the musical with Connie Fisher, who earned the chance to star in the show after winning reality TV talent contest How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? Shepherd's understudy Christopher Dickins will immediately play Von Trapp, while Alexander Hanson has been hired to permanently replace the Henry V star. A spokesman for ever-professional Shepherd says, "Simon wants to wish Alexander Hanson and everyone involved in the production the very best of luck." It isn't the first controversy linked to the show - Fisher's alternate in the show, Emma Williams, quit the production last month after the reality TV show star chose to play Maria in eight performances a week.